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House Republicans Plan Their Own Health Bills

WASHINGTON — Less than 24 hours after voting to repeal the new health care law, House Republicans said Thursday that they would pass discrete bills to achieve some of the same goals, but with more restraint in the use of federal power.

At the same time, the speaker, John A. Boehner, said House Republicans would push for much stricter limits on abortion in federal programs, including those created by the new law.

By a vote of 253 to 175, the House on Thursday directed four committees to draft legislation that would replace the health care law. The directive sets forth 13 objectives.

It says, for example, that the legislation should “lower health care premiums through increased competition and choice,” provide access to affordable coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, increase the number of Americans with insurance and provide states with “greater flexibility” to run their Medicaid programs.

Representative Rob Woodall, a freshman Republican from Georgia, said he was proud to have voted for repeal of the new law so Congress could “go back to the drawing board and bring things forward one at a time.”

Another freshman Republican, Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, praised a provision of the law that allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance until they reach the age of 26.

“I am committed to working with my colleagues in a bipartisan manner to support reforms we agree on, like allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ plan,” Mr. Stivers said.

Other Republicans praised a section of the new law that helps older Americans with prescription drug costs.

President Obama said this week that he was “willing and eager” to work with members of both parties to improve the law. But aides said he would adamantly resist efforts to repeal it.

On the House floor on Thursday, Democrats said it was bizarre to see Republicans praising consumer protections in a law they had just voted to dismantle.

“It’s like Alice in Wonderland,” said Representative John Garamendi of California, a former state insurance commissioner.

Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, said: “With last year’s health insurance reform law, we provided real guarantees to American families against insurance abuses. Today, Republicans tell these families, ‘Forget the binding guarantees, we have 12 platitudes for you.’ This is not a Republican prescription. It’s a placebo.”

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Democrats said it would be difficult for Republicans to pick and choose among provisions of the law because the popular and unpopular parts were locked together.

Consumers like the assurance that they can obtain coverage regardless of any pre-existing condition, but dislike the requirement to carry insurance. Without such a requirement, insurers say, people could go without coverage until they needed care, driving up costs for everyone else.

In addition, Democrats said they were skeptical of Republican plans because, when Republicans controlled Congress, they did little to cover the uninsured.

Republicans recalled, however, that they secured approval of two huge changes in domestic social policy that worked much better than Democrats had predicted. They remade welfare programs in 1996 and added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 2003.

“The idea that Republicans are just not interested in health care and won’t do anything is belied by history,” said Stuart M. Butler, director of the Center for Policy Innovation at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The new law will set up insurance exchanges where people can shop for coverage. Millions of low- and moderate-income people will be able to obtain federal subsidies to help defray the cost.

Mr. Boehner and other House Republican leaders on Thursday embraced a bill stipulating that — with narrow exceptions — no federal money, subsidies or tax credits could be used to pay for abortion or for any health insurance plan that includes coverage of abortion. “It’s one of our highest legislative priorities,” Mr. Boehner said, referring to the bill, offered by Representatives Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, and Daniel Lipinski, Democrat of Illinois.

Abortion rights groups vowed to fight the proposal.

Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said Republicans had told voters they wanted to “focus on creating jobs while limiting the role of government in our lives.” But now, she said, having taken control of the House, “they want to be able to interfere in our personal, private decisions, especially a woman’s right to choose.”

The White House said it would plow ahead with the health law, undeterred by the political uproar over it on Capitol Hill.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, offered federal money to states to help them establish insurance exchanges.

“Beginning in 2014,” Ms. Sebelius said, “these marketplaces will allow individuals and small-business owners to pool their purchasing power so the mom-and-pop shop can have the same negotiating clout as the big chain down the street.”

California and other states have begun work to set up exchanges. “It would be a huge mistake to undo this progress” by repealing the new federal law, Ms. Sebelius said.

A version of this article appears in print on January 21, 2011, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: House Republicans Plan Their Own Health Bills. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe